


risen from the earth

by Good0mens



Series: sonnet xvii [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Anal Sex, Based on a Poem, Bottom Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Canon Queer Character of Color, Canon Queer Relationship, Character Study, Established Relationship, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Acting Like a Married Couple, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, M/M, Marwan Kenzari giving me life, Mentioned Andy | Andromache of Scythia, Mentioned Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Mentioned Nile Freeman, Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Loves Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Pablo Neruda's Poetry, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Movie: The Old Guard (2020), Relationship Study, Top Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, dealing with Booker's betrayal, don't lie, explaining the 20 year exile suggestion, hints of Booker's exile ending, of sorts, you know the one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:54:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28215042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good0mens/pseuds/Good0mens
Summary: halcyon days:a. a fortnight of calm weather during the winter solstice.b. a period of peace and happiness."When Andy had all but ordered them to take a month off after Merrick, they’d been quietly grateful but apprehensive. Nile’s keeping in touch as much as she can, but both Joe and Nicky are worried in that hesitant, careful way that you can only be with your big sister.If Nicky’s baking bread, that means he’s almost ready to admit that something is wrong."
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: sonnet xvii [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153466
Comments: 50
Kudos: 371





	risen from the earth

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to marwan for providing me with the material for this fic, you beautiful beautiful man.

When Yusuf arrives back to their house, shucking his coat off with the winter chill, Nicky is in the kitchen with the beginnings of bread laid out before him. With his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, Joe can appreciate the flex of Nicky’s forearms as his fingers roll and knead the dough on the small bench.

The first time Yusuf saw him, all those years ago, he thought _stone,_ he thought _sea salt_ , he thought _steel wrapped in flesh._ Now, he wraps his arms around Nicky’s middle and places a single kiss to the nape of his neck and thinks _home._

“Hello, my love,” Nicky murmurs, tilting his head to receive a peck from Joe.

Joe hums a greeting in response, tucking his chin over Nicky’s shoulder to look down at the ball of dough in Nicky’s hands. Nicky likes to make focaccia bread when he’s feeling nostalgic, which probably means he’s missing Booker, or Andy. Probably both.

When Andy had all but ordered them to take a month off after Merrick, they’d been quietly grateful but apprehensive. Nile’s keeping in touch as much as she can, but both Joe and Nicky are worried in that hesitant, careful way that you can only be with your big sister.

If Nicky’s baking bread, that means he’s almost ready to admit that something is wrong.

Things have been tense between them, since Booker’s exile. There’s a rift, big enough to fill up the 80 year difference of their sentences, the _lifetime_ between Nicky’s suggestion and his own. It’s not noticeable to anyone but them (and maybe Andy), but Joe feels it like a missing limb, phantom movements aborted before he can realise he’s doing them.

He can tell Nicky feels the same but he’s avoiding it, and Joe is letting him. He supposes they’re in halcyon days after all, even if the edge of it is a little colder than it should be. He can pretend everything is fine if that’s what Nicky needs from him.

So instead of pushing it, Joe asks, “Should I chill some wine? I think we have some stored away from the last time we were here.”

 _Here_ is Malta, because where else would they be? Where else would they go? Sometimes, it feels like all roads lead them back here, to this little corner of the world. That no matter what happens, they’ll always have it to return to.

Usually this would be Nicky’s cue to joke about Booker stealing all their liquor, and the beat of silence that passes instead is thick with regret and grief. Nicky glances over his shoulder at Joe and then he sees it.

 _There_ is the darkness, lingering behind Nicky’s eyes, in the gunmetal of his clenched jaw – his lover is bared teeth and violence vibrating just underneath the surface of soft skin. Curled lips, cold stare, cocked weapon; think sharp, calculated fury. Cutting. Can rip a bullet through a man’s skull between one steady, even breath and the next, catch the empty shell in the same palm that rests between Joe’s shoulder blades as he steadily fucks him at night.

But just as quickly as it comes, it goes; Nicky nods softly to Joe, before returning to the dough. Joe knocks his forehead gently with the back of Nicky’s head and makes his way across the kitchen, picking a bottle from their cart and placing it in the fridge.

When he turns back around to Nicky, he’s laying a tea towel over a bread tin, floured hands fiddling with the corners before brushing them down over his jeans. 

“So,” Joe starts, “focaccia bread?” _Would you like to talk about it?_

“It’ll take a few hours to rise.” _Not yet._

Joe nods slowly, considering, before taking Nicky’s hand and leading him to the couch. He sits down and Nicky kneels between his legs, head leaning on Joe’s thigh. He reaches over to pluck a book from the coffee table and starts reading aloud, running his fingers softly through Nicky’s hair while they wait.

* * *

“Nicky, _shit,_ babe,” Joe hisses on another brutal thrust.

He has seen Nicky roll his shoulders forward into a shot of his sniper with less purpose and focus as he rolls his hips into Joe’s body now. The impact is the same though; ripping through Joe’s body without mercy.

Is Joe struggling to breathe against the assault of sensation in his lungs, fingers tangled in the sofa cushion, or is he clawing his way out of the dirt where Nicky tried burying him once, hands stained black with soil?

“ _Nicolo_ ,” he groans the next time Nicky buries himself inside, just to feel the way it makes Nicky shudder.

In the concrete cracks between inhaling and exhaling, Joe only knows _Nicky_. They’re sharing the same breath, now, like they share the same soul – intertwined bodies like their lifelines. Joe’s ankles hooked around Nicky’s hips, Nicky’s hand around the back of his neck, holding each other close while they take what they need from each other’s bodies.

This is not making love, like they usually would in Malta. It isn’t a slow, steady affair between gentle kisses until they’re both breathless, when the coming and the going of it is a sweet salve. No, this is Nicky pushing roughly into Joe and Joe taking it, the only kind of physical fight they’ll let themselves have, making a salted wound out of each other. The sting of it is in Nicky holding back and Joe not giving him an inch to hide.

His own cock is flushed and hard enough to hurt, Nicky’s abdomen brushing up against it every few thrusts, and Joe wants to get a hand around himself, but he also doesn’t want this to end. Getting fucked by Nicky, especially when he’s like _this,_ is an exquisite ache.

Nicky ensnares his mouth in a kiss that’s got too much teeth and everything in Joe’s body stutters. When Joe says Nicky is his heart, _his life_ , he means as in the pulsing, dark thing that lives in his chest; bloody, beating, breathing, breaking, bursting– pushing out into all his extremities. As in _if you go, I’m going with you;_ as in _warmth in the cold_ ; as in _overflowing, flowering, unfailing in these boundless bodies._

Every time Joe is dragged out from the darkness of death, it’s to come back to his lover. He will rise from the earth, rise from the hatred, rise like the bread they broke outside Damascus, to meet Nicky’s open hand, to meet his thrusts.

Joe tears his mouth away from Nicky and Nicky drops his face to mouth at his neck, or to avoid Joe’s eyes, Joe can’t tell. Then Nicky shifts, and he’s suddenly hammering Joe’s prostate dead on, sending a thrill of heat and pressure from his gut up into his lungs.

“ _Fuck,_ Nicky, love this, love _you_ -”

Nicky goes, and Joe goes with him.

* * *

Before they head to bed that night, Nicky covers the proofed dough tightly with cling wrap and closes it up in the fridge along with the wine. Joe pads down the stairs after his shower just in time to watch Nicky spot a bee fluttering against the window, trying to escape. Nicky pushes the latch to let the little creature out before closing it again.

Because the thing is, Nicky is also a quiet quake of gentleness; the kind of kindness that openly defies. One that brings unbelievers to their knees and then puts them back on their feet. It is unshakable and enduring, like them. It would be one of the many reasons that Joe loves him, if this kind of love demanded reason (it doesn’t).

The problem, Joe thinks as Nicky turns to look at him, is that Sebastien isn’t deserving of it.

* * *

The next morning, Nicky crushes the garlic with furious efficiency, peeling the skin back before slicing down the clove and dicing it up. Joe’s mouth waters at the smell of it, even as part of his mind races at the prospect of this little dance being over soon.

Nicky brushes the mix of garlic and olive oil over the focaccia, coating it liberally. Then he sprinkles rosemary and salt over the top because Joe likes it that way, and pushes the loaf into the oven.

* * *

_Halcyon days_.

The Roman poet Ovid told the story of Halcyon, and how she would wait by the shore for her lover Ceyx, how he was lost to sea and she died without him. The Gods took pity on the lovers, so they raised them from the dead and turned them into kingfishers.

Halcyon found out Ceyx died through a dream – and what is the worser fate, Joe wonders? To be the one staring out at the ocean, waiting on some prophecy for your loved one out of reach, or the one trapped by the waves? He tries not to think about Andy bleeding out on the bench in Merrick’s lab, about Quynh trapped in the bottom of the ocean. About Nicky strapped down out of reach from him.

Instead, Joe thinks about etymology. Halcyon and halogen are very similar; both contain the Greek prefix _hal-,_ meaning salt. So sometimes halcyon days are the salt in the sea coloured eyes of the love of your life when you saw him for the first time, or the salt in the warm bread he bakes when he’s been thinking too much.

* * *

They bring their makeshift dinner of bread and wine into the living room and sit on the floor, for old time’s sake. It feels familiar and deliberate, and Joe lets himself be comforted by it. The focaccia bread is delicious; the crust is crisp but not hard, giving way under the slight pressure of the bread knife as Nicky carves off slices for them to try. The savoury flavour bursts on Joe’s tongue and he groans, and Nicky smiles, flushed and pleased with Joe’s approval. Paired with the olive oil and the alcohol and Nicky’s solid presence by him, Joe is warm and full by the time they’ve torn off half the loaf and soaked it in their stomachs with mouthfuls of wine.

Nicky’s habit of baking when he’s overthinking or frustrated with Joe definitely has its rewards, like the homey fragrance of freshly baked pastry, and Joe can’t help but find it endlessly endearing. But when Nicky reaches over the careful space that Joe has been giving him to wipe a crumb from his beard before taking Joe’s hand, he knows their period of peace is about to come to an end.

Joe opens his mouth and asks the question that’s been pulsing like a headache in his brain for too long.

“ _20 years_?”

20 years for the man who would have had them locked up as lab rats. 20 years for the brother that betrayed them.

Nicky closes his eyes, like he’s already steeling himself for Joe’s reply when he says, “You know exactly why, Joe.”

“ _Actually,_ I’ve been wracking my brain for weeks, driving myself _nuts_ over this, so I don’t think I do, Nicky,” Joe cuts in, frustrating clipping his words slightly.

He knows it’s not because Nicky has forgiven him. That would be too easy; but Joe knows Nicky, knows what he’s like when he’s barely holding it together. Nicky is _pissed_ , and he will be for quite some time.

“Andy is mortal. She doesn’t have 100 years, and keeping her from Booker will only make his grief worse-”

“Andy is the one who agreed to the century! Who gives a shit what that traitor feels?”

Nicky narrows his eyes and responds, “ _You_ do. You miss him, and you’re tearing yourself up about the fact that you couldn’t help him, and if you keep him from saying goodbye to Andy you’ll never forgive yourself.”

Because Nicky knows him too. Joe swears, closing his eyes. He wipes at his mouth, leg bouncing with sudden frustrated energy. Nicky squeezes his hand and Joe squeezes back, even though he feels like he’s going to shake apart. When he looks at Nicky again, he sees nothing but understanding in his eyes.

“Tell me you didn’t regret it as soon as we left him on that beach,” Nicky says quietly, and with those words, Joe is undone. 

A choked off sound escapes him without his permission. Nicky’s on his knees right in front of him in a heartbeat, and then Joe sinks forward and they’re holding each other, curved into each other’s bodies as Joe sobs his frustration into Nicky’s shoulder.

“How could he do that to us?” Joe manages to get out, and Nicky only clutches him harder.

“I don’t know, my love,” Nicky murmurs, running a hand up and down Joe’s spine.

“I wish I didn’t miss him. But I’m so tired of being angry,” Joe admits wetly. He sniffs, and then takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of rosemary and Nicky and their home, grounding himself back into his body.

“I think,” Nicky starts carefully, drawing back to look at Joe, “that you are too compassionate for your own good, tesoro. And I love you far too much to let you make yourself miserable.”

Joe smiles wryly, “I could never be miserable with you by my side.”

But that was half the problem, wasn’t it? _You and Nicky always had each other,_ Booker had said.

As if sensing his thoughts, Nicky takes Joe’s face in his hands.

“We are _not_ to blame for his actions,” he says severely, eyes darting between Joe’s like he’s making sure Joe understands it.

And suddenly Nicky’s sullen mood makes sense. He’s been stewing in those words, in the implied accusation underneath them. Trying to reconcile his anger with the knowledge that Joe _couldn’t_ be angry any longer. Trying to find a way to live with Booker’s betrayal, _for Joe._

Joe’s never loved him more.

He says as much to Nicky, who smirks at him.

“I’ve heard,” he teases, and suddenly the mood has shifted, their conversation tabled in favour of making themselves feel better, “something about how my kiss still thrills you after a millennium? Maybe I should send Booker a gift basket for the opportunity to hear you wax poetry about me.”

Joe laughs, pulling Nicky further into him, nuzzling his cheek. “I don’t need an excuse to tell you how your body awakens _a passion_ in me-”

He’s cut off by Nicky snorting, and then there are soft lips on his. They still have much to talk about, like where to go from here, and what to do about Booker.

But Nicky tastes like salt, and new beginnings. That's enough.


End file.
